PurposeOver the past decade, the Queensland wine industry has experienced a greater percentage growth than the Australian national average. The aim of the research undertaken for this article is to identify specific national and international strategies that have allowed the industry to achieve this level of growth.Design/methodology/approachThe study involved a quantitative survey of all Queensland wineries at the time (n=101), using a five‐point Likert‐scaled questionnaire with questions developed from the literature, together with a small‐scale qualitative survey involving in‐depth interviews of winery managers and industry leaders.FindingsThe findings indicated that key strategies in the domestic sector included a focus on cellar door sales combined with establishing links with the tourism industry, together with an incremental expansion of domestic markets. For the international sector, additional strategies included targeting familiar, psychically‐close and niche markets in the initial stages of exporting, as well as taking advantage of firm‐specific strengths and managerial competencies.Originality/valueNot previously regarded as a major wine producing region of Australia, the Queensland wine industry has received limited attention in the literature, particularly the reasons for its rapid growth in recent years. The article helps to identify the strategies used by wineries in growing the industry.

While numerous theories have been used to explain innovation, one found to be useful in recent years is cumulative causation. Its major focus on incremental and evolutionary change, the path dependent nature of change, and its circular and cumulative effects, make it particularly useful in helping to explain innovation. In this chapter the literature on cumulative causation theory is reviewed to highlight links between these characteristics of the theory and innovation, as well as influences such as problem solving, learning by using and doing, collaboration, specialisation and the clustering of industry in certain locations. These characteristics and influences are then used as a basis for reporting empirical research into the nature of innovation in manufacturing and processing in an Australian rural region, and the usefulness of the theory for explanatory purposes is evaluated.

This paper explores the impact of a learning culture on organisational change in small to medium-sized regional manufacturing enterprises following a review of the related literature, and a qualitative study of 10 manufacturing SMEs in the Riverina region of New South Wales. The research confirmed that key learning culture factors as identified in the literature were significant in the regional manufacturing firms studied. These included a strong commitment to a learning culture within the organisation, employee involvement in the development of the learning culture, demonstrating the tangible benefits of a learning culture to senior managers, and strong leadership support for organisational learning.

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